


rule seven

by Ceta



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, American Football, Fluff, Jock Yuuri, M/M, Misunderstanding, very brief - Freeform, victuri big bang 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 18:09:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16454864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ceta/pseuds/Ceta
Summary: Victor has spent the last three years pining after his soulmate despite the relative anonymity between them. However, when a chance encounter at school has Victor falling for the one person every student knows is off-limits, Victor needs to make a choice: his soulmate, or a hopeless romance with the quarterback and darling of Stammi Vicino High, Katsuki Yuuri.





	rule seven

**Author's Note:**

> My fic for Victuri Big Bang 2018! Wonderful [art](https://knight-draws.tumblr.com/post/179567565897/these-are-the-2-things-i-made-for) by [Quinn](https://knight-draws.tumblr.com/), who was incredibly patient with me! Check it out and give it lots of love!

There are a couple of rules in Stammi Vicino High:

 

  1. Don't ever get on Principal Baranovska’s bad side. At best, she'll give you the Look that can freeze hell over. At worst, she'll expel you.
  2. Don't ever get on Vice Principal Feltsman’s bad side. At best, he'll give you the Look that makes you feel like a five year old with their hand caught in the cookie jar. At worst, Principal Baranovska will expel you.
  3. Yuri Plisetsky should be approached with caution at all times unless you are:
    1. Katsuki Yuuri
    2. Victor Nikiforov
    3. The principal or VP
    4. An idiot
  4. Don't get involved with the theatre kids unless you want to be the school’s latest gossip in exactly three days - _especially_ Georgi Popovich.
  5. If you need easy hall passes, go to Instructor Okukawa.
  6. Answering an orchestra or band student when they ask you which one you like better equates to death by musical instrument no matter which one you choose.  
    1. That said, the concertmasters are pretty chill.
  7. Don’t fall in love with Katsuki Yuuri.



 

Victor found these rules graffitied onto the door of a bathroom stall sophomore year. Looking at them now, as a newly minted senior, Victor has to smile even if some of these things are a lie (Miss Okukawa, for all that she loves Victor, will not, in fact, give him easy hall passes, and not _everyone_ in the orchestra picks a fight with the band kids. Victor, the concertmaster, is one of the written exceptions, but everyone other than the first chair cellist - Plisetsky, who doesn’t hesitate to snap at the first trumpetist, Leroy - is amiable too.).

 

There are more additions under the original list, but Victor only skims over it, not taking any to heart, and hurries out of the bathroom and to the cafeteria for lunch. When he reaches up to brush his hair back over his shoulder - he forgot his hair tie, unfortunately, as he was getting ready this morning - he catches the familiar blue ink of his soulmate’s messages appearing over his forearm.

 

Not everyone is able to see their soulmate’s messages when they’re written onto skin. Sometimes, it could take several months or years of messages before soulmates are able to see them - that being the case for Victor and his soulmate. Though they learned early on - with their first shared message, actually, which was less of a message and more of a friendly prank - that they attended the same school, Victor insisted they make a game of finding out who the other was. His soulmate, surprisingly, agreed.

 

(Sometimes, when Victor looks at the faces of his classmates in fruitless search of his soulmate, he wants to whack the past-him upside the head in frustration. Other times, he thinks of the anticipation in his gut, the ever-present excitement of _knowing_ his soulmate is close, and wonders how he can surprise them once he figures who they are, or if his soulmate is planning on surprising him, too.)

 

_How were your classes?_

 

Victor smiles, but it morphs into a frown when he pats his pockets and they all come up empty. He usually keeps a pen with bright ink, since most of his other pens end up getting eaten by his friend Chris whenever he borrows them for corrections. Victor looked at one of his corrected tests once, curious about how Chris could spend an entire pen’s worth of ink on corrections, and found that not only were they one of Okukawa’s infamous math exams but Chris also took the time to draw shapely butts in the margins and in between each question depending on its difficulty. Minako’s enthusiastic commentary, in flowing cursive, was what made him look away.

 

Deciding to stop by the classroom to grab a pen, Victor turns on his heel only to bump into a passing student and narrowly avoids smacking faces. He stumbles back, just barely catching himself on the wall, and glances up to see Katsuki Yuuri and his windswept hair and his crooked glasses in all of his SVH-colored letterman glory.

 

_Oh_ , Victor thinks. _I didn’t know Yuuri wore glasses._

 

To be fair, Victor mostly sees him while he’s practicing or playing a game, and given the sport - football, Victor thinks with a vague wince - it’s a safety hazard _to_ wear glasses. They probably wouldn’t last a quarter on Yuuri’s face, given how outright ruthless he is once he’s on the field.

 

“I’m so sorry,” Yuuri says, as he blinks at Victor, staring at him like he can’t comprehend that he’s standing there. There’s a pause when Yuuri opens his mouth but says nothing, and he flushes pink as he averts his gaze, one hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. “... Sorry, Victor.”

 

Victor starts, surprised. “You know who I am?” Victor has never been close to Yuuri’s circle of friends, the closest connection probably being Chris, who is the friend of one of Yuuri’s friends - or so he says.

 

Yuuri colors further. “We were… We went to the same middle school, and then we shared a few classes here, but we never really talked, I guess?” He laughs, but it’s quiet and slightly strained. “We share one this year, actually. Calculus with Okukawa.”

 

Victor laughs too to cover up the heat rising up his neck. Chris has always bemoaned his terrible memory, and now it’s come to make an ass out of Victor. “Oh, we do!”

 

Yuuri smiles, and it looks like it’s easier for him to catch Victor’s eyes now. “I’ve always liked your performances, too. They’re - They’re incredible.”

 

“Celestino _is_ a slave-driver,” Victor admits. “It’s all teamwork, though. The entire orchestra works hard.”

 

Yuuri blinks, then he’s waving a hand, shaking his head. “No, no, I mean - the concerts are amazing, and your solos are great, but I - I meant your dancing.”

 

“Oh,” Victor says, then doesn’t know what to say. Dance isn’t a big part of Stammi Vicino High - at least, not the dance that Victor practices, ballet. Miss Okukawa, who’s infamous for her ruthless exams no matter the level of mathematics, also doubles as the school’s dance instructor, and while most students often drop dance after a year or two, Victor remains one of her most dedicated pupils despite the very rare performances she manages to book with the dance club’s limited funds.

 

“Yes,” Yuuri manages. He rocks back onto his heels and shoves his hands into the pockets of his letterman jacket, looking vaguely uncomfortable. “What are you doing here anyway? Isn’t it time for lunch?”

 

“Oh, I came back for a pen.” Victor pauses, then adds: “It’s to talk to my soulmate.”

 

Yuuri smiles, shoulders relaxing at that. He looks fond, and of course he does. The whole reason why no one at school makes a move on him is because he’s voiced - multiple times, to many people - that he’s completely, whole-heartedly, head-over-heels in love with his soulmate.

 

There’s a reason why Yuuri’s coach always carries at least three pens on him when the team practices or plays. Whenever breaks or timeouts or half-times are called, Yuuri is always seen scribbling something onto his hand or arm. It’s become something of a running joke this past year, especially after Yuuri cut himself off during an audible to stare at whatever message his soulmate sent him and nearly got bulldozed over by the opposing team for it.

 

(They won that match, of course. 104-80 - a new record.)

 

“Here,” Yuuri says as he digs through his pockets and pulls out a pen. He hands it over to Victor, who takes it with a startled thanks. “This will save you the trip. Besides, I have a lot more on me.”

 

“Thanks,” Victor says again. He twirls the pen around his fingers. It’s blue. “I’ll see you in cal?”

 

“Yeah,” Yuuri replies. He looks like he wants to say something else, but he only shoots him a wave and another pink-cheeked smile before he’s off, rounding the corner and disappearing from sight.

 

* * *

 

It’s after school hours. Victor is in the middle of rushing to the orchestra room to grab his instrument before going home and replying to his soulmate at the same time when he bumps - again - into Yuuri.

 

It’s been a few weeks since their first meeting, but after that Victor has been seeing Yuuri a lot more throughout his days. He sees him as he’s going through the library, when he’s standing in line at lunch, when he’s practicing in the orchestra room and looks out to see Yuuri jogging by with the rest of the team. He doesn’t know whether or not these sightings are coincidences, or if Victor just hasn’t noticed them before.

 

“Ah - sorry,” Yuuri says before he looks up and meets Victor’s eyes. He breaks out into a smile at the sight of him. “I think this is the third time I’ve bumped into you today.”

 

“I was thinking seventh,” Victor jokes with a smile of his own. He clips his pen onto the strap of his messenger bag and decides to finish off his reply to his soulmate soon. “Are you all right?”

 

“I’ve been through worse,” Yuuri admits, and Victor can only wince as he thinks of all the times Yuuri’s been tackled down in his (very successful) football career. Yuuri laugh is sheepish when he sees the look that crosses Victor’s face. “It’s not that bad, I promise.”

 

“Didn’t you break an arm in sophomore year?” Victor asks, remembering how everyone tried to sign their names onto his bright blue cast during their shared lunch period. He doesn’t remember how long Yuuri’s arm was out of commission, but he does remember spying Yuuri after school exercising alongside his teammates, heedless of his broken arm.

 

Yuuri hadn’t been quarterback then, but Victor remembers seeing him in the light of the afternoon sun, handicapped but still pushing, and thinking that his earnest dedication was beautiful.

 

Coloring pink, Yuuri shrugs as if to say _what can I do?_ and changes topics. “What are you doing here after school? You usually go home, don’t you?”

 

“I do,” Victor says, going along with it easily. Yuuri is surprisingly easy to embarrass, and though Victor thinks it’s endearing, he doesn’t actually want to upset him. “I stayed behind with Miss Okukawa for… tutoring, I guess, and I was going to head to the orchestra room to grab my violin before I go home.”

 

“...Tutoring, you guess?”

 

Smiling, Victor adjusts his bag and goes into fourth position, cheerily reciting, “If the integral follows the structure x-squared minus a-squared, let x equal a-secant-squared theta -- “

 

“What,” Yuuri interrupts.

 

“ -- and use the identity tangent-squared theta equals secant-squared-theta minus one to solve the integral.”

 

“ _What_ ,” Yuuri says again, with feeling.

 

Victor relaxes from the position and explains. “Minako is helping me practice and tutoring calculus at the same time.” He pauses. “That’s not all of it, of course. I still need to do practice problems, but I forget how to solve them so often that she decided to make me memorize it.”

 

“By making you do ballet positions?”

 

“It works,” is all Victor offers.

 

Yuuri stares at him in disbelief, but in the next moment he’s stifling his laughter with one hand, turning away from Victor like he can hide it.

 

“What!” Victor cries, indignant. Heat rises up the back of his neck, and for the first time in a long time, because Victor is relatively shameless in everything he does, he can feel it creep into his cheeks.

 

“You- “ Yuuri tries and fails to keep his voice level. It breaks with laughter. “You’re a _dork_.”

 

Victor gasps like Georgi taught him for maximum dramatics. Yuuri only laughs harder.

 

* * *

 

_I made a friend_ , Victor writes to his soulmate once he’s home. He doesn’t know if he and Yuuri are friends _exactly_ , but he has fun with him whenever they bump into each other, and Yuuri looks like he enjoys being with him too, so Victor will leave it at that. _His name is Yuuri._

 

It takes a while for a reply to come, but as Victor is getting ready for bed, he sees it already written across his arm.

 

_What’s he like?_

 

_Nice_ , Victor writes back. _He smiles a lot. He reminds me of you, a little bit_.

 

* * *

 

They’re in Miss Okukawa’s class, paired off to help each other finish the packet of practice problems, when Victor realizes after the third time he’s asked Yuuri for help that Yuuri isn’t looking at him.

 

“Is something wrong?” Victor asks, when Yuuri loses focus and ends up staring at Victor’s hands instead. He’s not left-handed, and there isn’t anything odd about his hands at all, so Victor can’t figure out why Yuuri is so fascinated with them. Discreetly, he checks his nails - recently cut and filed for orchestra purposes, clean, as normal as ever - then checks for anything that may have caught Yuuri’s eye.

 

Aside from a light smear of lead on the side of his pinky, there’s nothing, not even a message from his soulmate.

 

Yuuri blinks. “Ah.” He hastily ducks his mouth to the inside of his elbow and coughs, but Victor catches sight of him _smiling_ and can only stare, dumbfounded. When he can’t find it in himself to cough any more, Yuuri covers his mouth with one hand, staring down at the calculus problems with what looks like tears in his eyes. He’s still smiling. “Nothing,” he says. “It’s nothing.”

 

Victor raises an eyebrow, smiles. “Oh really?”

 

Yuuri turns beet red and runs his hands through his hair - a nervous habit. “I - “ He laughs, shakes his head. His smile can light up this entire side of earth. “I just realized something, and I’m happy.”

 

“What is it?”

 

Yuuri colors even more. Shyly, he replies, “It’s a secret.”

 

“What could you have figured out by staring at my hands?” Victor teases. He inspects them again, flipping them palm up and turning them this way and that, but Yuuri only laughs again and grabs his right hand.

 

Yuuri’s fingers are calloused, hands firm where they are holding Victor’s more slender ones, and warm. All further desire to tease Yuuri about his absent-mindedness today has gone out the window, leaving him speechless and dry in the throat as Yuuri drags his thumb across his palm, straightening his hand out.

 

“A lot of things, actually,” Yuuri replies. He’s smiling still, but his voice is serious, and Victor doesn’t know whether he should laugh in humor or hysterics when Yuuri thumbs one of the lines on his palm. “I know a bit about palm reading.”

 

“Wow,” Victor chokes out, because he’s helplessly confused by one very loud, very persistent thought: _Yuuri is holding my hand, my hand is in Yuuri’s, Yuuri’s fingers are touching mine_ \- “Do tell,” he manages to say.

 

Yuuri looks up at him before focusing back on his hand. He points to the topmost line - his nails, Victor realizes, are also neatly cared for - and says, “This is your heart line. See how it curves up and stops over here? It means you’re ambitious, and that your love will be -” Here, he turns red. “ - true love… That’s paraphrasing it, though.”

 

“Oh? What else does it say then?”

 

“Well, it also says that you’re straightforward and stubborn - “

 

“I can’t argue with that,” Victor laughs.

 

“ - and that you’ll probably die around seventy-five - “

 

“What!”

 

“ - and that you’’re kind, and warm-hearted, and full of love.” Yuuri’s eyes go soft. Victor wonders if he’s even reading his palm anymore with how distant his gaze becomes. “Your soulmate is lucky to have someone like you.”

 

“Really? It feels like the other way around most of the time,” Victor says with a slight smile. Yuuri lets go of his hand and looks up at him questioningly, and so Victor elaborates. “My soulmate… They’re always there to listen whenever I need to talk about something, and they make me laugh whenever I’m feeling down. They were my first friend, and I want to do whatever I can to make them as happy as they made me, but…” Victor shrugs and flashes a helpless smile. “I don’t think they want my help.”

 

Yuuri starts. “Why would you think that?”

 

“I come to my soulmate all the time for help whenever I need it,” Victor points out. “It’s because I trust them. I’ve never had them ask _me_ for help, though, and it might be because they don’t need it, but it makes me feel like - like maybe they don’t trust me -- “

 

“That’s not it at all!” Yuuri blurts out, loud enough that the class turns their collective eyes to them. Miss Okukawa shoots Yuuri a raised eyebrow, and Yuuri sheepishly bows his head at her silent reprimand. When the class goes back to their work and quiet discussions start up again, Yuuri looks at Victor with a familiar fire in his eyes and says, “Victor, you- You’re amazing. Talented, yes. Smart, yes. But _you_ \- you’re one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. It’s easy talking to you - I _like_ talking to you and that’s something I can’t say to everyone, it’s just that - maybe, I don’t know, maybe it would help if - have you told your soulmate that they could come to you? For help?”

 

Victor blinks, overwhelmed by Yuuri’s sudden fervor and the warmth tickling his chest. “I haven’t,” he says, “but I’ll make sure to do it as soon as I can. I didn’t think… With all the times I came to them, I thought it’d be natural they did the same.”

 

“Try it,” Yuuri says. He smiles up at Victor, looking both sheepish and determined at the same time. Victor is dazed for a heartbeat by the fire in his eyes. “I promise it will help.”

 

* * *

 

After that, it takes Victor a long time before he gathers his thoughts and presses the tip of the pen to the skin of his arm. _I’m here for you, you know_ , he writes. He pauses, tapping the pen against his arm until he realizes that it’s leaving small marks all over, then writes underneath it, _I never said but if you need help with anything you can talk to me_.

 

_Thank you_ , his soulmate replies, tacking on a smiley face at the end of it. It’s cute, and it makes Victor shove his face into the pillow because he’s smiling so much. When he peeks an eye out to look at his arm again, he sees that his soulmate has written something else. _I do kind of need your help actually._

 

_With what?_ Victor is quick to scribble down, eager to help.

 

_What’s your favorite color?_

 

Victor blinks. _Blue._

 

_Animal?_

 

_Dogs. You know this, don’t you?_ He and his soulmate regularly talk about their dogs, sharing stories every so often.

 

_Just making sure. Sunset or sunrise?_

 

_Sunrise,_ Victor writes with a smile. _I’m a morning person_

 

_Morning people actually exist?_

 

_You’ve probably never met them because you sleep in so late,_ Victor tells him. If there’s one thing he’s learned about his soulmate, it’s that, without school, they’d stay in bed well into the afternoon.

 

_I met you, haven’t I?_

 

Victor wants to tell them that they haven’t met, not really, but then he thinks of all these little things that he knows about his soulmate, and that his soulmate knows about him, and he can’t bring himself to.

 

_I guess you have_ , he writes.

 

* * *

 

“Do you want to go to the game on Friday?” Yuuri asks. They’ve been hanging out more at Yuuri’s insistence, but Victor doesn’t mind it. Yuuri is nice, and he cracks a smile at Victor’s terrible jokes - better than Chris, who only shoots him a stare that speaks worlds of his unamusement.

 

They’re in Yuuri’s room, sprawled out on the floor with controllers clenched tight in their hands. Yuuri has a small TV opposite of his bed, along with multiple game consoles and even more games, and even though Victor had little clue on how to play at first, with Yuuri teaching him between teases these passed few weeks, it’s become something fun.

 

Startled, Victor hastily thumbs the pause button and looks over at Yuuri. “What?”

 

Yuuri looks back at him, cheeks a little pink. “The game. It’s on Saturday. Do you want to go? I can get you a ticket.”

 

Victor has never been to a football game in his entire life, and he only has the barest knowledge of it. “Sure,” he says anyway, smiling. “I don’t know much, but I think it’ll be fun seeing you play.”

 

Blinking, Yuuri carefully asks, “You don’t?”

 

“I’ve never played,” Victor explains. “Plus, I’ve only really focused on orchestra and dance. There’s really not much time for anything else when I have homework to do, too.”

 

Yuuri looks away for a brief moment as he plays with the controller’s cord, but when he looks back at Victor, his eyes are bright. “I can teach you, if you want.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yeah,” Yuuri says. He saves their game and pushes himself up off the ground, and Victor’s eyes follow the line of his arms as he stretches them overhead. “C’mon. I can show you a few things.”

 

On their way downstairs, they bump into Yuuri’s mother - Hiroko, who makes the _best_ food Victor’s ever tasted. She doesn’t speak much English, unfortunately, so the meaning of most of Victor’s gushing praises goes over her head until Yuuri translates for him, but she speaks well in regular conversation, and Victor has also taken it upon himself to learn some words in Japanese, much to Hiroko’s delight.

 

She speaks to Yuuri for a moment, and Victor _thinks_ she says something about lemonade. Yuuri turns to him and asks, “Do you want some lemonade?”

 

Victor grins. “Yes, please,” he says to Hiroko, who smiles back at him and goes off to the kitchen.

 

“She likes you, you know,” Yuuri tells him as they go into the backyard. It’s spacious, with various footballs off to one side, and a small vegetable garden in one corner. Victor spies green onions peeking out from one pot before he turns his attention back to Yuuri, who’s holding out a foam football. “She says no one else eats her food so enthusiastically.”

 

“It’s always delicious,” Victor says with a laugh. “I would come every day if I could.”

 

He takes the football from Yuuri, tossing it up and down to get a feel of it. Yuuri smiles at him. Something in it makes Victor toss the ball too high, too hard, but when it comes down Yuuri catches it with deft hands. So _effortless_. There’s a reason why Yuuri’s the captain of the football team.

 

“You can come whenever you want,” Yuuri says as he hands him back the ball. “Here. Let’s start with how to hold it.”

 

It feels odd holding it, the stretch of his fingers on the laces and stitches unlike how his fingers dance on the strings when he plays the violin. Yuuri has to correct his positioning several times before Victor gets the hang of it, but soon they’re passing the ball back and forth, Yuuri slipping a little further back after each successful pass.

“I’m terrible at this,” Victor laughs when Yuuri has to dive for the ball again. He laughs harder when Yuuri slips on a patch of grass and ends up on the ground, the ball clutched victoriously in his hands. “Yuuri!”

 

“I’m okay,” Yuuri says, and Victor sees that he’s laughing too when he runs over to him. He holds out a hand to help Yuuri up but almost topples backwards when he pulls too hard and Yuuri nearly collides into him. They both laugh again as Yuuri steps back and dusts the dirt and grass off of his arms and legs. “Maybe that’s enough for today.”

 

He smiles up at Victor. It’s not the first time he’s ever done it - far from it; Yuuri is always smiling at him in some way - but this time, just like the smile from earlier, makes Victor’s breath catch in his throat. Yuuri’s glasses are askew from the fall, and there’s still blades of grass clinging to his hair and a dusting of dirt on his chin, but Victor looks at him and sees the sunlight in his eyes and the genuine joy in the curve of his smile, and his heart trips all over itself.

 

_Oh no_ , Victor thinks as Yuuri pushes his hair out of his eyes and says something Victor can’t make out over his too-loud pulse. The back of his neck heats up when Yuuri waves a hand in front of his face, and Victor prays it won’t spread to his cheeks. _Oh no._

 

* * *

 

 

“There are worse things that can happen,” Chris says when Victor tells him about his very problematic feelings for one very sweet, very kind, and _very unavailable_ Katsuki Yuuri. They’re at lunch, but Victor can’t stomach anything right now so he pushes his food around instead. Across from him, Chris shoots him a smile as if to say _what can you do?_ and it doesn’t make Victor feel any better. “If it’s just a crush, it’ll go away. You know how it is.”

 

“This isn’t _just_ a crush,” Victor tries to explain. He’s been thinking about this for days, ever since his revelation in Yuuri’s backyard, and _this_ \- this heart-stumbling, stomach-dropping, blush-inducing _thing_ that happens whenever Yuuri so much as looks at him - isn’t _just_ anything.

 

“What would you call it then?” Chris asks as he takes a bite out of his lunch. “Since it’s not a just a crush.”

 

Victor moves to answer, a frustrated _I don’t know!_ on the tip of his tongue, when he catches sight of his soulmate writing on his arm.

 

_I just saw the bestest dog outside. My friend had to drag me back onto the track because I completely forgot we were running laps_

 

Victor’s heart clenches tight from both adoration and guilt.

 

“You’re not going to reply?” Chris asks when Victor makes no move to.

 

Victor sends him a helpless look. “I want to, but I… I can't. What kind of soulmate am I, falling in love with someone else?”

 

For the past three years, Victor has pined over his soulmate. It was easy to fall in love with them. They gave Victor comfort when he sought it and talked to him whenever he felt unbearably alone, drew doodles of poodles alongside well-wishes on important dates, and never failed to be there when Victor needed someone to listen, no matter what the time. Victor always tried his best to return the favor, and now that his soulmate is finally opening up to him, Victor has gone and fallen for someone else.

 

Somehow, he’s fallen for Yuuri, who everyone knows has a soulmate he loves very much.

 

Victor _knows_ this, so why can’t he get Yuuri out of his head?

 

Chris takes a gulp from his water bottle. “You and I both know not all soulmates are romantic.”

 

“I know,” Victor says, giving up on pushing food around his plate to cover his face with his hands. “I _know_ that, but I also stay up at night thinking about them, wondering who they are and if I passed them in the hallways or if I ever talked to them, and sometimes I think about whether or not they’d like Makkachin, or if they’ll like _me_ when we meet, and if they like to dance or - or music, even, because I want to share those things with them and they… They make me happy.”

 

Chris is silent for a while, and Victor is afraid he bored him to death. When he looks over at him, though, Chris is blank-faced but intent. “What about Yuuri?”

 

“What about him?”

 

“Do you…” Chris waves a hand. “Do you want to do all those things with Yuuri, too? Does he make you happy like your soulmate does?”

 

Victor looks down. “He does. I do,” he replies. “Yuuri already invited me to a few of his games, and he invited me to his next one, too. I was thinking about inviting him to my next performance - dance or orchestra, whichever comes first - as thanks.”

 

Chris perks up at that. “His next game? The one on Saturday?”

 

Quirking an eyebrow at Chris’ sudden interest, Victor replies, “Yes. That one. He said he’d get me tickets if I wanted to go.”

 

Victor had put up a fight about that one. Yuuri had given him tickets for the last two games he went to. The least Victor could do this time around was get his own tickets, but Yuuri had been stubborn, and Victor gave up only after wrangling a promise from Yuuri that he’d let him buy his ticket to Victor’s next performance.

 

“Victor,” Chris says very carefully. “Yuuri’s next game is the Finals.”

 

“I know,” Victor tells him. Yuuri said as much when he asked Victor if he wanted to come to the game, and Victor was ecstatic to come see Yuuri play and, hopefully, win. “What about it?”

 

“Are you serious?” Chris asks him.

 

“What?”

 

“Tickets to the Finals get sold out like _that_.” Chris snaps, punctuating his point. “It's like buying tickets to a concert - there one second and out in the next - and tickets sales have been sold out for about a week already.”

 

“What?” Victor exclaims. “What do you mean sold out? Yuuri just asked me two days ago!”

 

Shrugging, Chris shoves a slice of the canned peaches served for lunch today into his mouth. “Maybe he has special privileges as the captain, but it seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through for just a friend, if you ask me.”

 

“He promised me it was no trouble at all,” Victor groans.

 

“Think about it,” Chris says. “If you were interested in some other guy, and you wanted him to go to the final game of your high school career, would you really tell him it’d be troublesome if you offered to get him tickets?”

 

“...No,” Victor eventually concedes. He crosses his arms, stubborn. “This doesn’t mean Yuuri likes me, though. There’s a reason why everyone likes him, Chris. It’s because he’s so _nice_.”

 

“Yes,” Chris agrees. “That’s totally it. Nothing at all about how he looks on the field, or how the uniforms make his thighs look thick as hell, or how his _ass_ \- “

 

“Chris.”

 

Chris shrugs and rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t say anymore about it - for which Victor is grateful. He doesn’t need the image of Yuuri in uniform, slick with sweat and with that fierce look of determination in his eyes, grappling with other players, pinning them down --

 

“Thanks, Chris,” Victor says, dropping his face into his hands. “Thanks a lot. I really needed that.”

 

“No problem at all,” Chris chuckles. The lunch bell rings overhead, and Chris nudges him with his foot. “Come on, Victor. Let’s get to class, and maybe you can think about what you want to do before everything blows up in your face.”

 

“Do you really think that’ll happen?”

 

Chris shrugs. “Anything’s possible.

 

* * *

 

“Victor!”

 

Victor jumps, starting guiltily when he recognizes the voice, and turns around to see Yuuri making his way through the crowd of students. Most of them part - and why wouldn’t they? It’s Yuuri, after all - but the ones who aren’t paying attention nearly walk into Yuuri, though he dodges and sidesteps them all with a dancer’s grace.

 

As Yuuri comes closer, Victor has half a mind to turn around and run.

 

Just as he takes a step back, Yuuri is suddenly there in front of him, fingers curled around one of Victor’s wrists. It’s a light grip, loose, and Victor knows he can break out of it, but he can’t bring himself to move when Yuuri has him pinned under his stare.

 

“Hey,” Yuuri says, and it’s soft. Victor wonders if he noticed his aborted attempt to flee. “Are you all right? You didn’t reply to me earlier.”

 

Victor blinks. “Earlier?”

 

Yuuri nods, and to Victor’s surprise he looks parts concerned and nervous. “Yeah, earlier when I was out. The one about the dog - “

 

Yuuri clamps his mouth shut.

 

Victor’s eyes go wide.

 

“Aha,” Yuuri chuckles, but it’s weak. He squeezes Victor’s wrist, then abruptly lets go. His lips are pulled into a tight, awkward smile, and he doesn’t even look at his watch or his phone before he says, “Would you look at the time. I- I have dogs to study for and homework to feed! I guess I’ll see you never- I mean, later, Victor - “

 

“Yuuri, wait - “ Victor reaches out and takes one of Yuuri’s hands into his just as he takes a frantic step back. For some reason, Yuuri isn’t look at him at all, eyes staring at the school’s linoleum floor like it’s the most fascinating thing in the world - or like he’d like for it to open up and swallow him whole. He doesn’t try to pull away, and Victor swallows down the lump in his throat. “What was… Your message, it was about a - about a dog?”

 

There’s only one person who sent him a message today, and it wasn’t from a phone.

 

“... No?” Yuuri tries meekly. Victor stares at him, hoping the hope welling up in his chest isn't too blatant. “Maybe?”

 

“Yes?” Victor offers.

 

Yuuri rubs the back of his neck, still avoiding Victor's gaze. After a moment, his shoulders slump and he mumbles, “Yes.”

 

Victor can’t help the smile that stretches across his lips. The fingers he wrapped around Yuuri’s wrist tug at the sleeve of his jacket, and Victor asks, hesitant but hopeful, “Can I?”

 

Yuuri glances up at him through his lashes - Victor doesn’t think he’s ever seen Yuuri so reticent before now. There’s a dusting of pink across his cheeks, and his lips are pressed together like he doesn’t know what to say, but he eventually relents. “Yes.”

 

As Victor carefully rolls the sleeve up Yuuri’s arm, he uncovers the blue ink that has been on his arm since lunch. He brushes his thumb over it, and he wonders how he never noticed it earlier, Yuuri’s handwriting. There’s the familiar way his letters slant to the left and his perfectly round, closed _o_ ’s, the careful spacing between each word.

 

How did Victor not _see_ it?

 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Victor asks, sounding small. He thinks of all the rumors of Yuuri and his unknown soulmate, of Yuuri’s own confirmations about how he cherished his soulmate, and wonders why he never said anything when he knew it was Victor - tried to keep it a secret, even. “Did you not want me to know?”

 

“I - I wanted to keep it a secret,” Yuuri tells him, and he must see something in Victor’s expression because he hurries to add, “Not because I didn’t want you to know - well, I kind of did - but it was because I wanted to surprise you!”

 

Victor smiles, but it’s a confused thing. “Surprise me?”

 

Yuuri goes red, and he ducks his head again. “... I was going to tell you after I won.”

 

Victor squeezes Yuuri's arm. “And if you didn't?”

 

Huffing out a laugh, Yuuri looks at him, eyes shining with determination. “I wasn't going to let that happen.” He smiles, a small thing. “I was going to win for you.”

 

“Y _uu_ ri,” Victor groans, but he’s still smiling. He doesn’t think he _can_ stop. He’s too happy. “I’m already surprised! I was worrying all this time, and it turns out you’re my soulmate.”

 

“What were you worrying about?” Yuuri asks him, looking understandably confused. “Is this why you didn’t reply to me earlier? I really was worried, Victor. I thought I’d done something wrong.”

 

“No, it wasn’t anything like that,” Victor assures him. He presses a finger to his lips and tries to figure out how to explain his indecision between two people who ended up being the same person. “I was trying to decide what to do about my, ah, feelings. For my soulmate, and for you.”

 

Eyes widening, Yuuri’s face flushes with color again as he tries to stammer some kind of reply. “You- You were trying to - between me and -? Oh, god, Victor, I’m so sorry. That must have been terrible.”

 

“It’s not your fault,” Victor says. He takes Yuuri’s hands into his, heart so full with warmth as he looks at Yuuri. “Besides, everything ended up better than I ever hoped for.”

 

Yuuri smiles back at him. “Yeah, I guess it did.”

 

* * *

 

 

_I_ _s it true I distracted you from a game once?_ Victor writes, half-curious and half-teasing as he sits in the stands for the final match of the season. The game hasn’t started yet, so Victor isn’t surprised by Yuuri’s almost immediate response.

 

_Of course._ There’s a second before another line shows up on his arm. _You drew a doodle of Makkachin._

 

That startles a huff of laughter from Victor. He doodles Makkachin’s face onto his arm, scribbling _Good luck!_ right next to it even though he knows Yuuri doesn’t need it. After all, Yuuri hasn’t been the captain of the undefeated team for this long through sheer luck alone.

 

Still, Yuuri jots back a simple smiley face, and almost immediately afterwards, the two teams enter the field and the game starts. Victor is swept along with it, his eyes trained on Yuuri and the _16_ emblazoned across his back, cheering whenever points are scored and on the edge of his seat for every other moment. The ninety minutes go by like nothing, and before Victor realizes it, everyone around him is getting up to their feet, cheering and yelling and chanting _Vi-ci-no! Vi-ci-no!_

 

He jumps up to his feet just in time to see Yuuri nearly get dogpiled by the rest of his teammates in the middle of the field. Even with the distance between them, even with the crowd around him, Victor sees Yuuri laugh with utter delight and thinks he can hear it ringing in his ears, too.

 

Restless now, Victor grabs his pen and writes, _You were amazing!_ _Wow!_

 

When he looks up and over at Yuuri again, Yuuri is staring down at his arm, the rest of his teammates trying to catch a glimpse of what’s written on there, too, but Victor hardly pays attention to them. There aren’t any words to describe how Yuuri’s expression morphs into something soft and inexplicably happy as he reads Victor’s message. It makes Victor’s heart beat loud and hard in his chest, and before he can even second-guess what he’s doing, Victor is climbing down the scant few steps to the field and running towards Yuuri.

 

“Yuuri!” he calls out.

 

Yuuri startles, and when his eyes catch sight of Victor, he looks stunned for the moment it takes him to break into a run towards Victor.

 

“Victor!”

 

When Yuuri is close enough, Victor doesn’t think. He leaps, fully believing Yuuri will catch him - and he does. Yuuri laughs as he catches him, arms wrapping around Victor’s middle. He holds steady under Victor’s weight but slowly lets him fall to his feet, though he keeps his arms around him.

 

“You were amazing,” Victor tells him again once he can see Yuuri’s flushed face. “Wonderful, incredible, stunning, out of this world - “

 

“Victor,” Yuuri laughs.

 

“ - and mine,” Victor finishes, his smile so bright it must match Yuuri’s. “Have I ever told you that I love you?”

 

“No,” Yuuri says, “but I love you, too.”

 

* * *

 

 

There are a couple of rules in Stammi Vicino High:

 

  1. Don't ever get on Principal Baranovska’s bad side. At best, she'll give you the Look that can freeze hell over. At worst, she'll expel you. 
  2. Don't ever get on Vice Principal Feltsman’s bad side. At best, he'll give you the Look that makes you feel like a five year old with their hand caught in the cookie jar. At worst, Principal Baranovska will expel you. 
  3. Yuri Plisetsky should be approached with caution at all times unless you are:
    1. Katsuki Yuuri
    2. Victor Nikiforov
    3. The principal or VP
    4. An idiot 
  4. Don't get involved with the theatre kids unless you want to be the school’s latest gossip in exactly three days - _especially_ Georgi Popovich. 
  5. If you need easy hall passes, go to Instructor Okukawa. 
  6. Answering an orchestra or band student when they ask you which one you like better equates to death by musical instrument no matter which one you choose.  
    1. That said, the concertmasters are pretty chill.
  7. Don’t fall in love with Katsuki Yuuri. He’s already happily in love with his soulmate, Victor Nikiforov.



**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


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